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Gillette: The Best a Questioning, Cishet, Non-Binary Ally Can Get
Gillette has had a rough few years. The former shaving hegemon has seen its market share plummet due to a resurgence in classic “wet shaving,” online razor subscription services, and the popularity of beards. Gillette’s obvious options are to lower their artificially high price or drastically improve their quality. Instead, they’ve decided to make their remaining customers feel bad about themselves through an expensive new ad campaign.
“You’re a very bad person, give us money” is an odd marketing pitch, especially from a company that’s used sex to sell its product for decades. (Every time I shave, I’m disappointed no scantily-clad supermodel steps up behind me to rub my smooth face.) The Wall Street Journal attempts to explain Gillette’s campaign:
The ad puts a new spin on the brand’s 30-year tagline, “The Best A Man Can Get,” challenging men to take positive actions, such as stopping other men, and the next generation, from harassing women.
“This is an important conversation happening, and as a company that encourages men to be their best, we feel compelled to both address it and take action of our own,” said Pankaj Bhalla, Gillette brand director for North America in an emailed statement. “We are taking a realistic look at what’s happening today, and aiming to inspire change by acknowledging that the old saying ‘Boys Will Be Boys’ is not an excuse. We want to hold ourselves to a higher standard, and hope all the men we serve will come along on that journey to find our ‘best’ together.”
“It’s a risky move,” said Dean Crutchfield, CEO of branding firm Crutchfield + Partners. On one hand, it “creates a credible, believable, and upfront conversation that takes brutal honesty and tough decisions,” he said.
Customers don’t want brutal honesty and tough decisions, especially when they already get those every hour of the day. Gillette’s target market wants a smooth face for a low price.
Of course, Gillette refuses to provide that; it would destroy its business model. A century ago, King Gillette revolutionized marketing by offering a dirt-cheap (or free) razor handle. He then sold replacement razors at a high markup, locking consumers into a lifetime of expensive refills. Many imitators followed his model, something you notice every time you replace ink cartridges in your printer.
By the 2000s, Gillette was offering 38 blades with lawn-trimmer attachment for about $20 a month; men had enough. Some guys (like me), bought shaving brushes and simple safety razors that provided a better shave for pennies a blade.
A few years later, Dollar Shave Club and Harry’s offered multi-blade razors online which performed better than Gillette at a fraction of the price. The shaving giant attempted a club of their own, but it was an overpriced scam like the rest of their product line. Watching their market share continue to decline, Gillette has now declared war on its customer base. Back to WSJ:
Gillette parent Procter & Gamble Co. is among companies that in recent years have used advertising as a platform to promote their stance on social issues such as gender equality, and polarizing political topics such as immigration and gun control. P&G is perhaps best known for its lauded “Like a Girl” ad campaign for feminine-care brand Always and “Stress test” for deodorant brand Secret.
Promoting social issues can be effective marketing, but notice the difference. P&G’s female-directed ads make women feel better about themselves. The company tells women “you’re great just as you are” and tells men “you’re bad and need to change.” I’ve yet to complete my Marketing Ph.D., but I don’t think a message of “Women are revolting, buy Secret” would spike profits.
What do you think about Woke Gillette? Will it change your buying decisions?
Published in General
I would hope so.
Per Reddit; delete Facebook, hit the gym, and lawyer up.
Explain why you find it offensive and see what she says. Sometimes all people need is a reminder to see things from a different perspective.
Piers Morgan on the Gillette ad:
“this absurd virtue-signalling PC guff may drive me away to a company less eager to fuel the current pathetic global assault on masculinity. Let boys be damn boys. Let men be damn men.
Followed up by this after receiving many negative tweets in response to his orig above – (which is pure Piers)
“My New Year’s Resolution for 2019 is to be just as annoying, argumentative & insufferably right about everything as I’ve been in 2018. Zero apologies in advance to all whiny PC-crazed snowflake imbeciles who will be horrifically offended by absolutely everything I say or write.”
Probably a large percentage of men’s razors are purchased by wives, and some women use them in preference to “women’s razors”.
This ad might not be as counter-productive as we imagine.
Still sucks though.
I see he got “woke” . . . but in the other direction.
I’ve never used aftershave lotion or anything of the sort, but Toxic Masculinity would be a good trade name.
Trifecta:
Except Harry’s is now running the same kind of anti- masculinity ad as Gillette
Harry’s did it well over a year ago. (That was an older Tweet I posted above.)
You know what’s funny? The left has long demanded that corporations get out of politics. Now they applaud corporations passing along their political messages.
If true, it’s time for James to have a conversation with Harry’s mktg dept – for whom James did a yeoman’s job introducing it their product to the male Ricochet audience!!
Ruby Tuesday’s? Because of Ringo?
Through shaving?
And an ad showing all women to be prostitutes is just asking them to be better?
Prostitutes is a little harsh.
@Front Seat Cat – most men agree that there is a lack of male role models, and would be fine with calls for men to do better.
What is upsetting are the inferences of guilt by association. It defines all men by their worst behaviors and needing “something to happen” to change them. It implies that boys should not be boys and should definitely not emulate their fathers with their chauvinist grilling.
And furthermore there is the insulting assumption that an avenue to “push to become better” is moralizing lectures from a razor company.
Why is it harsh? Claiming that all men beat each other up, harass women or otherwise behave asocially is just as bad. For prostitution at least it could be claimed to be providing a service in demand and theoretically mutually agreed by the involved parties. Being called a prostitute therefore is actually less insulting than being tarred the way Gillette has accused men.
What does any of this have to do with selling razors?
Apparently, Gillette has been directly targeting Harry’s in their marketing.
Have they ever done that with Schick, Wilkinson Sword, generic store brands, or makers of electric razors? Surely those other companies sell more razors than Harry’s does, so why would Gillette single Harry’s out?
Is Harry’s customer base uniquely made up of former Gillette customers, rather than former customers of those other brands?
http://try.harrys.com/lp-welcome-back-d/
This just popped up on Twitter:
Tell her you think it’s total garbage. If she buys you Gillette products in the future, then you dump her . . .
I’m sorry but this is more like Toxic Femininity!
I mean bashing boys who are learning negotiation skills, i.e. playing games on the play ground or backyard, standing up to bullies, backing down men harassing women and playing war. And Ladies stop using the man’s razor — meant for his face — on your legs. Maybe that’s why men get pissed off once in a while.
I once had to tell my wife to quit using my razor. Her leg hair did something to the blades that made it uncomfortable to shave with.
His legs.
Well, it looks like Harry’s deleted their anti-man Tweet today. Fascinating.
EDIT: More here.
Schick it is, then. Or I go back to the beard.
The best answer to Gillette:
My grandmother was born in 1899 and is long gone, but she liked to tell the story of the young man who worked on the farm who wanted so badly to grow a beard, but wasn’t quite there yet. The other farm hands told him the trick was to smear chicken dung on his face and let it dry and keep it on his face all day long. Apparently he was quite devoted to this plan.
She never told me what revenge he took on them after all that.
Harry’s did a “woke” ad too, right after Gillette. Guess I’m growing a beard.
Edit: I see that the Harry’s ad is a couple years old. Still growing a beard.
I have no problem mocking a company AND using its products.
The Harry’s tweet in question was from November of ’17. They tried to memory hole it after they realized it might cost them some of the customers they were gaining from Gillette this week due to their toxic-to-sales messaging.